All three objectifies the receiver of the act in some way because all three necessitates an object. Although the term serving and the way it had been explained may sound more considerate, something about having to argue what sort of deed to do, or how a sort of deed should be done, seems to be the opposite of genuine. Does it not in the end seem to put others down, in what I had said objectifying them in the process that should be for their benefit. Here is a far more objectifying, pseudo-compassionate denial that can be perceived in this way of thinking.
“We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy” may be correct but in the end, the object of our “service”, the space where it occurs, is one that must be broken or needs fixing in some way of founded upon a sense of inequality. There are people with more or lesser strength; that is simply reality. Is it not more self-serving to deny the fact of inequality, of privilege?
We can only “help” or “serve” others, but we cannot build for them their own worth, integrity, wholeness. Those things ought not to be based on one’s strength. Why one might possibly miss the wholeness of another person is not because of one’s lack of a “serving attitude” but only simply because one equates brokenness with worth or lack thereof.
There can also be distance in service. Society used to call those who “serve” “slaves”. When one is “profoundly connected” it does not matter if there is an inequality or a lack of a more politically correct term.
A reflection in reference to:
Rachel Naomi Remen. Serving Is Different From Helping and Fixing. Awakin.org. Retrieved from https://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=940